Summary:
In the dark woods I’m forbidden to go into, lying on top of the one person I swore I’d stay away from, and hiding from the men who chased him, I hold still as Ike Kennedy whispers in my ear, “Don’t leave me.”

The questions of why my mother packed up our lives and moved us to Auburn, New Jersey when she, herself, fled here twenty years ago, plague me every day. Her past and the people in this town loom over our family with a haunting understanding of the coven I was born into, but realize I know nothing about. The enemies I heard stories about as a child attack without warning or regard for human life, but I don’t know who they are.

I’m Ever Ayars. I can fly. I can disappear. I can move things with my mind, but my gifts are my only clarity. Lost within a new school, new friends, and a new life, there is only one thing I know for sure.

I’m not leaving Ike Kennedy.

💫📚📅💫The next two installments of The Witches of Auburn are releasing the same day!💫📅📚💫

What is the biggest influence/interest that brought you to this genre?
There’s something intriguing about witches. They’re beautiful and cunning and yet mortals like the rest of us. They have children and meetings and hair appointments to keep. I like to think all the women I know are some type of powerful witch, I just might have delved a little further into the notion in THE WITCHES OF AUBURN. Now that I’ve written the first three installments of the series, I’m completely obsessed with these women. They are no different than your best friend, your neighbor, or the woman working the drive thru window at the bank, except they could set you on fire if need be. What’s not to love?

When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process(outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
Without a doubt, the parts of the process I like best are the first draft and the cover design. Both are filled with creativity without boundaries. (At least for me. I have the actual covers designed by a professional.) I could write first drafts every day of my life. It’s the multiple rounds of editing that feels like work, but they are a necessary evil.

When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
I love a tragic love story and anything with suspense. Those books are not as easy to find as it sounds. I troll commercial fiction best sellers to find books that interest me. I wish I had more time to read and explore other genres. Every New Years “read more” is my resolution. I’ve been not-so-consistently working on it since 2015!

If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
Stephen King. He is a genius. Not one word is wasted in his work. I love his process, his perspective, and of course, his novels and short stories.

Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
This is definitely a later in life venture. I’d left a 15-year corporate career to finish my elementary teacher certification at the exact time my state’s education budget was severely cut. While I was working on my post-grad education courses, a professor had commented that I had a unique writing style and should write more. With time finally on my hands, I sat down and wrote. The story from there to selling my first book to Hachette is as random and lucky as the decision to put the first word on paper. I’ve been incredibly lucky in a business that has tremendous opportunities and an unending string of disappointments.

Author Bio:
Hazel Black graduated from Rutgers University and returned to her hometown in rural South Jersey. Her mother encouraged her to take some time and find herself. After three months of searching, she began to bounce checks, her neighbors began to talk, and her mother told her to find a job.

She settled into corporate America, learning systems and practices and the bureaucracy that slows them. Hazel quickly discovered her creativity and gift for story telling as a corporate trainer and spent years perfecting her presentation skills and studying diversity. It was during this time she became an avid observer of the characters she met and the heartaches they endured. Her years of study taught her that laughter, even the completely inappropriate kind, was the key to survival.

She currently lives in New Jersey with her family and a misbehaving beagle named Odin. As an avid swimmer, if Hazel is not with her family and friends, she’d rather be underwater. While she enjoys many genres, she is, and always has been, a sucker for a love story…the more screwed up the better.

Hazel Black writes contemporary romance as Eliza Freed. To keep up with all new releases and giveaways, sign up for her newsletter here.

For those who live to read...here are some awesome books provided by the incredible authors who wrote them. All in celebration of the new school year.

While a few of these books might be oldies, but goodies...others could be new and fresh off the presses.

Relax and find your new favorite author.

✯ ✯ ✯ ✯

PARANORMAL

Paranormal in traditional literary terms is related to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, such as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.

Please enjoy these books that focus on paranormal and all the sub-genres. The list is available in alphabetically order by title.

Don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win an Amazon Giftcard.

Bob at The Plaza by Ellen Hegarty (w/a R. Murphy)

Paranormal romance

Bob, our favorite martini-loving ghost, has vanished. Now Roz faces a miserable snow-bound winter alone. Well, almost alone. Thank goodness for David, the practical, kind grape grower who lives up the hill... (Book 2 in the 'Bob' books--see Book 1, Bob at the Lake)

Midnight Angel by Tracey A Wood

Paranormal romance

After almost losing her life in a vicious, bloody attack. Kat Shaw, a thirty-something divorcee, discovers that there are such things as monsters. And the predator who attacked her is not human. She starts to develop unusual skills that have murderous consequences. And she becomes an unwilling witness to multiple, brutal murders, seen through the eyes a killer. Thrown into a battle of Good vs. Evil, she falls in love with two men who are not what they seem. While her attacker stalks her and continues to murder the innocent, she has to find the inner strength to take on and fight the demons from hell—to protect her family and friends while also trying to save her own life.

My Soul To Give by Magali A. Fréchette

Paranormal Mystery Romance

When Celina Leviet escapes the brutal home invasion that kills her husband, she’s left with a bullet in her gut and vengeance in her heart. An alluring demon, Mekaisto, offers an irresistible deal—in exchange for her soul, he’ll let her live long enough to get her revenge, but she must hunt and kill the murderers herself.

After sealing the contract, Celina digs into her husband’s past for clues about his murder, and what she uncovers makes her question everything she thought she knew about him.

His company never existed.

His family history was a lie.

And he was involved with The Lumen, a shadowy religious order whose members know too much about demons. As the life she thought she knew crumbles around her, Mekaisto's charms become harder to resist. Forced to face a horrible truth, Celina struggles against her late husband’s betrayal and the dark seduction of the devil she knows.

Snow in July by Kim Iverson Headlee

Paranormal

Sir Robert Alain de Bellencombre has been granted what every man wants: a rich English estate in exchange for his valiant service at the Battle of Hastings. To claim this reward, the Norman knight must wed the estate's Saxon heiress. Most men would leap at such an opportunity, but for Alain, who broke his vow to his dying mother by failing to protect his youngest brother in battle, it means facing more easily broken vows. But when rumors of rampant thievery, dangerous beasts, and sorcery plaguing a neighboring estate reach his ears, nothing will make him shirk duty to king and country when people's lives stand at risk. He assumes the guise of a squire to scout the land, its problems, and its lady.

Lady Kendra of Edgarburh has been granted what no woman wants: a forced marriage to an enemy who may be kith or kin to the man who murdered her beloved brother. Compounding her anguish is her failure to awaken the miraculous healing gift bequeathed by their late mother in time to save his life. Although with his dying breath, he made her promise to seek happiness above all, Kendra vows that she shall find neither comfort nor love in the arms of a Norman…unless it snows in July.

Alain is smitten by Lady Kendra from the first moment of their meeting; Kendra feels the forbidden allure of the handsome and courtly Norman ""squire."" But a growing evil overshadows everyone, invoking dark forces and ensnaring Kendra in a plot to overthrow the king Alain is oath-bound to serve. Kendra and Alain face a battle unlike any other as their honor, their love, their lives, and even their very souls lie in the balance.

Storm Watch: Book Three in the Unfinished Business Series by Carole Ann Moleti

Paranormal Romance

Mike and Liz thought they'd gotten control of the specters haunting the Barrett Inn. But things get very complicated when they're the ghosts from your past life. The Category Five Hurricane bearing down on Cape Cod appears to be headed directly for them--or has it been spawned from inside them? Knowing it’s their last chance to end the hauntings, Mike and Liz must decide whether to run or to defy evacuation orders. Will they survive the storm?

The Reaper's Kiss by Dale Ibitz

Paranormal Romance

Sex and poison aren’t enough to help William forget his status as a shunned reaper with a sordid past. Rejected, disgraced, and hopeless, he straps on his emotional armor so no one will ever hurt him again. His path to redemption for his sins is side-tracked by Natalie, an exquisite human trying to save her sister from the horrors of the Other World. But then Natalie’s reckless actions sets William on a collision course between his past and his present: a demonic tyrant who wants William back in her bed; the sadistic daughter of an angel who wants revenge on his murdering mother-goddess; and the mother-goddess who demands obedience and love from William, her favorite child. After learning the dark secret of Natalie’s past, how much will he sacrifice to save her soul?

The Widow's Walk: Book Two in the Unfinished Business Series by Carole Ann Moleti

Paranormal Romance

Liz Levine is convinced her recently deceased husband is engineering the sequence of events that propels her into a new life. But it’s sea captain Edward Barrett, the husband that died over a century ago, who has returned to complete their unfinished business. Edward’s lingering presence complicates all her plans and jeopardizes a new relationship that reawakens her passion for life and love. What are Captain Barrett’s plans for his wife, and for the man who is the new object of her affections?

Ellen Hegarty (w/a R Murphy)
Roz Murphy is the author of the 'Bob' books, Bob at the Lake and Bob at The Plaza. Published by Soul Mate, they are available on Amazon and B&N.

Tracey A Wood

Tracey A Wood has lives in Staffordshire, in the United Kingdom. She has been married for over thirty years and has two children. One of her boys lives at home due to being disable the other has flown the coup. She has three cats that are her babies, and she talks to them all of the time. Funny thing is they don’t answer back.

She loves snowboarding, skiing, jumping out of aeroplanes and bungee jumping. Well, that is when other people are doing them. She prefers to have her nose in a book or writing one. She also loves to people watch which her husband is always telling her to stop doing. She has a job that she enjoys and works full time. Although if she won the lottery, that might change! She has also got a very good imagination.

In 2014, she decided to take the bull by the horns and send her manuscript to Soul Mate Publishing. She feels so privileged to have her book published, as this is the first one that she has written. It has made her dream of being a published author a reality. Life really is too short to wait, you’ve got to go for it. She is still working full time and is also working on another book in her limited spare time. Her favourite saying is ‘Everything happens for a reason’ which she also believes is true.

Her books are fast paced and centered on a female lead who finds an inner strength after being thrown into situations that are beyond her control.

Magali A. Fréchette
Magali A. Fréchette writes the darker side of stories. Paranormal, dark fantasy, and mystery/thriller, but always with romance – she’s an extremist and loves both dark and cute things. All her stories are either set in Canada, or in alternate worlds (makes sense since she’s Canadian, right?). She is always writing and enjoys freelancing as a book cover designer.

Magali wrote her first story when she was 12 years old (and she’ll never speak of it again!), but started taking her writing seriously three years later. Since then, she always writes. It’s always been a dream to be a published author, and she can happily say she’s reached that first goal and plans on continuing writing and publishing for the rest of her days.

Kim Iverson Headlee
Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, Great Pyrenees goat guards, and assorted wildlife. People and creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins—the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-twentieth century—seem to be sticking around for a while yet. She has been an award-winning novelist since 1999 (Dawnflight first edition, Sonnet Books, Simon & Schuster) and has been studying the Arthurian Legends for nigh on half a century.

Carole Ann Moleti

Carole Ann Moleti lives and works as a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her fascination with all things paranormal, urban fantasy, and space opera. Her nonfiction focuses on health care, politics, and women's issues. But her first love is writing science fiction and fantasy because walking through walls is less painful than running into them.

Books One and Two in the Unfinished Business series, Carole's Cape Cod paranormal romance novels, Breakwater Beach and The Widow's Walk, were published by Soulmate. Book Three, Storm Watch, is due out June 28, 2017.

Urban fantasies set in the world of Carole's novels have been featured in Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, and Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires.

Carole also writes nonfiction that ranges from sweet and sentimental in This Path and Thanksgiving to Christmas to edgy and irreverent in the Not Your Mother's Books: On Being a Mother and On Being a Parent.

Dale Ibitz
Dale Ibitz was born in Oxford, Connecticut, grew up in the state of Washington, and then re-located back to Connecticut as an adult where she studied English at Central Connecticut State University. She never left, choosing Connecticut as her permanent home. Dale’s a fan of hiking and the outdoors, loves alternative metal music, and she never, ever starts the day without chocolate and coffee (preferably together).

Adam Barton is living his dream of working as a firefighter in his small Texas town, but a tragedy from his youth continues to haunt him. He decides New York City is the perfect place to start a new life and joins the FDNY, living and loving his own way—no strings and nothing personal. Until he catches sight of Rico Estevez, the sexy chef with the mysterious smile who rocks his world. After one explosive night together, Adam craves another….And then another. The more he and Rico are together, the more Adam wants him.

A future he never imagined

Rico Estevez is living a lie. For years he’s hidden his sexuality, afraid to hurt the career of his politically ambitious father. He’s the perfect American―the best schools, top of his class and most importantly, to his father, a successful businessman. Who needs a boyfriend when sex is so easy to find? Starting a torrid love affair with Adam Barton isn’t a problem; neither one is looking toward forever. But Rico’s father is about to get the chance of a lifetime and Rico feels forced to play by his rules.

Rules are made to be broken

Adam proves more unforgettable than Rico ever imagines, but he gives in to family pressures above personal desire. When a fire reunites them, both men discover their passion for each other hasn’t died; rather it’s stronger than ever. Want turns to need and something more dangerous to their hearts—love. Adam and Rico know if they want to have it all, they can let no one and nothing stand in their way of a life together.

Author Bio:
I have always been a romantic at heart. I believe that while life is tough, there is always a happy ending around the corner, My characters have to work for it, however. Like life in NYC, nothing comes easy and that includes love, but getting there is oh so fun and oh so sexy.

I live in New York City with my husband and two children. My day begins with a lot of caffeine and ends with a glass (or two of red wine). I practice law but daydream of a time when I can sit by a beach somewhere and write beautiful stories of men falling in love. Although there are bound to be a few bumps along the way, a Happily Ever After is always guaranteed.

And, the magical powers of a Majestic waterfall which brings these two together.

Author Bio:

I live in Newcastle, on the New South Wales coast of Australia with my husband and three beautiful children.

Between being a taxi for my children, and working full-time, I somehow find the time to write. It’s something I love with a passion and with the encouragement of my very supportive husband, I have accomplished one of my dreams – releasing my first novel.

I hope you fall in love with my characters as much as I have.

I love reading and getting lost in a good book when I manage to snatch five minutes to myself.

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